I didn’t see or photograph this object ‘cause they keep it in their special papyrus room...papyrus is much too fragile, and they're lucky there's any of it left at all this photo is from a Google Images search.) According to MacGregor’s podcast, it’s a long, fragile bit of papyrus that’s basically the book you study to pass the GREs, if you’re a well-to-do ancient Egyptian and you want a job as a civil servant. It had a funny title, along the lines of “How to answer all problems and make everyone forever happy,” and--like the cunieform writing tablet--is a testament to the need for bureacracy in a big state. And, one hopes, to the fundamental human drive for fairness, since that’s what all this is about. In any event, the maths aren’t particularly complicated...no one knows whether the fancy Greek mathematicians got their stuff from the Egyptians or came up with it themselves. This is practical math, none of your fancy math.
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